Do you know Estudio Herreros ?

Estudio Herreros is a Madrid-based architecture practice operating worldwide, employing about 20 architects from 7 different nationalities. The firm consolidates the 30-year career of Juan Herreros, Chair Professor at Madrid School of Architecture and permanent professor at Columbia University in New York.

estudio Herreros is indeed the refoundation of Herreros Arquitectos which, in turn, was built on the legacy of the now legendary Ábalos&Herreros, established in 1985. While Herreros Arquitectos was an adventure initiated by Juan Herreros himself with the intention of building a strategic position and a working method in accordance with the times of global practice and focus on talent, interdisciplinarity and coworking, estudio Herreros confirms the achievement of such objectives through the transformation of Herreros Arquitectos into a partnership structure which translates the specificity of their personality into a true corporate structure.

At present, Juan Herreros keeps his position as the practice’s founder, appointing architect Jens Richter as his first partner. Other team members will soon increase the associates cast.

In line with their past career, estudio Herrerosfollows a selection protocol of commissions and restricted competitions involving the parallel development of small, medium and large works. Smaller projects, ranging from artworks to temporary installations, interior design or small buildings of any kind, comprise their R&D laboratory for the technical and theoretical resces which are eventually implemented in projects of greater complexity. They have a broad experience in the design of singular, intermediate-scale buildings of great communicative power in which all the technical, logistic and subjective aspects are on an equal footing; a distinctive trace of their built work. In addition, their CV features a series of urban and strategic projects entailing the resolution of conflictive situations which demand the creation of highly diverse and specialized teams.

estudio Herreros inherits and assumes the challenge of maintaining its position on the national architectural scene, not only through its work but also through its public presence, based above all on the figure of Juan Herreros, whose academic, intellectual and media profile constitutes a reference in the transversal connections between the field of architecture and other cultural, economic and social-science realms. As a result, they take particular care of their clients, which include public organizations such as the Regional Government of Castilla y Leon, Adif (the Spanish national railway infrastructure operator) or the Municipality of Madrid, together with major companies such as Hispasat, cultural institutions like the Reina Sofia National Museum, business organizations like Madrid Chamber of Commerce, the ‘Y …Fin Teatro’ Foundation and many others among the arts, gastronomy and retail fields.

estudio Herreros is strongly determined to promote and develop its international activity by means of a constant and successful presence in international commissions and restricted competitions, backed up by Juan Herreros’s academic practice at Columbia University. estudio Herreros is currently engaged in the design of the new Munch Museum in Oslo together with the residential and commercial district of Bjørvika after winning a major international competition in 2009 or in the design of a block within the EUROMED housing project in Marseille as well as in the ANFA development in Casablanca, as a result of winning two international competitions held in 2013. Meanwhile, the Agora-Bogotá International Conference Centre in Colombia has already broken ground, a commission awarded after winning an international competition in 2011. Other built works outside Spain include the Bank of Panama Tower in Panama City; the Communication Hut project in Gwangiu, South Korea; and an ambitious system of infrastructural, public spaces in the cities of Colon and Panama City in Panama.

The work of the various offices founded by Juan Herreros throughout his thirty-year career has been widely recognized with several national and international awards: the Architects’ Association of Madrid Award on seven occasions; the Madrid Town Hall Award on a further three; finalist to the FAD awards on four occasions; finalist to the Mies van der Rohe Award on four occasions; the Barcelona Town Hall Award; the Comunidad de Madrid Award; the Solutia Design Award; the AVS Euskadi Award to the Best Housing Project; the Construmat Barcelona Award; the AR House Award; or the Spanish Architecture Biennial Urban Planning Award among national contests; and the Ibero-American Architecture Biennial Applied Research Award; the European Union Grand Prix, or the NAN Award for the best Spanish overseas design among other international prizes. Furthermore, his work has been featured in several individual exhibitions (a myriad of Architecture Schools and Associations, deSingel-Antwerp, IIT-Chicago, Architectural Association-London, CAAM-Las Palmas, ICO-Madrid, ROM-Oslo, Venice Biennial, StudioX in Rio de Janeiro) along with collective exhibitions including the several editions of the Venice Biennale, Spanish Architecture Biennials (on 10 occasions), the MACBA, the World Fairs of Aichi and Zaragoza, ‘New Trends of Architecture’ (Tokio 2002), ‘Dialogue’ (Tokio and Madrid 2005), ‘Innovación Abierta’ exhibitions in Panama and “Above MM” in Mexico City, the exhibitions ‘Light Construction’ (1995), ‘Groundswell’ (2004) and ‘On Site’ (2006) curated by the MoMA – New York or the Vertical Urban Factory exhibition (New York 2011) among others. It has been extensively featured in specialized an mainstream media, as well as in several monographic publications edited by Gustavo Gili, Actar, 2G, CAAM+ICO, Arquitectos de Tarragona, Summa, Future Latinoamérica, Future China or PLOT.